1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a docking station for shopping carts so that small children may safely and easily ascend the station and position themselves within the seat portion of the shopping cart.
2. Background of the Prior Art
Placing a child into the seating portion at the back of a standard shopping cart can be a difficult task. The child, especially a relatively large and heavier child, can prove too much for a person of modest strength to lift up and place into seat. Even when strength is not a problem, a person's hands may be preoccupied with a baby, thus not allowing that person to lift the other child. The result is a seating attempt that is fraught with danger.
The person may attempt to lift that child even though the child is beyond the person's strength capacity. The person may cause injury to himself or the child in the awkward lift. Alternately, the person may encourage the child to climb up the front of the shopping cart, into the shopping cart and finally into the seat portion of the cart. As the cart was not designed for a child to scale the front of the cart, such a maneuver can result in toppling of the cart and injury to the child. Another favorite for seating a child within the cart is to place the cart near an object such as a bench or stacked cartons of groceries and have the child climb onto the object and into the seat. In such a maneuver, the cart can roll away from the child as he attempts to seat himself in the cart or the object onto which he climbed can collapse, again resulting in injury.
In order to provide a safer means for a child's ascension into the seating portion of shopping cart, a shopping cart docking station has been proposed by Hubbell in his U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,087. This device provides a docking station that corrals the shopping cart within the device and permits a child's use of the device only during shopping cart presence. A remote release lever must be activated in order to release the shopping cart from the device's hold. Although achieving the desired goal, the device, by having several moving components, is very complex in design, in manufacture, and in maintenance. Such a drawback increases the costs associated with the device. The device has a large footprint which curtails its presence in many shopping establishments where available interior real estate is at a premium. As the device is large and requires device activation from the user, many people will be discouraged from using the device due to lack of understanding of device operation.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a device that permits quick and safe child ascension and access to the seating portion of a shopping cart. The device must overcome the drawbacks of the prior art in that the device must be relatively simple in design, manufacture, and maintenance. The device must be relatively simple and straightforward to use and will, ideally, have no moving parts or other manipulations required of the user. The device should occupy a relatively small amount of real estate.